When arguing with gun nuts, as most Americans have to do at some point or another, they are all around us, the arguments are always the same. You may win on any one of these arguments, you may cite statistics, you may phrase the perfect zinger, it doesn’t matter. They will jump to another argument and carry on. oblivious. The fact of the matter is they love guns. They love guns beyond all reason, more than they love life itself (don’t ask me, ask them. That’s what ‘you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands’ means), more than they care about kids getting shot in school, more than the flag, Mom and apple pie all rolled into one. So, you’re never going to win.
But, I was sitting out on our newly cleaned (Thanks, Helena!) balcony today, smoking a joint, when I realized that there are two good arguments to counter the whole “tree of freedom must be watered with the blood of tyrants” argument they frequently use. Usually, I just use argument #1 against that, which is “Ha! You and your army of overweight, under-educated, T shirt wearing, Trump voting gun range warriors are going to overthrow the U.S. government! Hoo boy, that’s not only ridiculous, it’s delusional and dangerous. You know, tanks, helicopters, shit like that.”
But, there’s another good reason. Any revolution that uses force is not an actual revolution at all. For the last 50,000 years or so, the rule of force has been the way of society. Wht’s revolutionary about continuing that?
No, the revolution that we need now is a revolution in intelligence, in information, in the way we relate to each other, so we can move forward in concert and make progress and create a better world. Anything short of that isn’t a revolution at all.